Patient Safety is Advanced by Combining Clinical and Business
Skills in Unique Educational Program

(Philadelphia, PA) – The Department of Surgery at the Hospital
of the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School
and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics of the University
of Pennsylvania have joined together to establish the nation’s
first management training program designed to improve patient safety by improving
the leadership skills of the clinical team. Called the Penn Medicine Patient
Safety Leadership Academy, the program takes 42 mid-level clinical personnel,
from all aspects of the surgical process – doctors, nurses, physician
assistants, and residents – through a seven-month course of intense weekend
conferences and practical case studies to see how they can apply sound management
practices to improving patient safety.

“Surgery is a highly complicated management process, with up to 30 different
stakeholders involved in the most basic procedures, yet everyone has a role
to play in patient safety, from start to finish,” said Jim Mullen,
MD, Professor and Vice Chair of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania
Medical Center. “After nurturing the concept for several years, we have
chosen to heavily invest in the development of leadership and management skills
of these clinical leaders anticipating downstream benefits on patient safety.”

The Patient Safety Leadership Academy is a tremendous opportunity to use the
educational skills from the nation’s leading business school to benefit
patient safety at HUP, one of the nation’s top five surgical centers.

The Leadership Academy, which began in October 2003 and runs through May 2004,
is a pilot program designed to prove how “administrative empowering”
of mid-level managers involved in a surgical case improves patient safety. Teams
of seven clinicians will look at common managerial questions that arise in surgical
situations. Each team will design a project to improve communication and, ultimately,
patient safety in surgical care where errors are most likely to happen: i.e.
between residency handoffs; moving from pre-operative care to the operating
room and between units, or during shift changes in lengthy surgeries; communication
at the time of discharge; and during patient transport between procedures. Some
of the common managerial questions that can be applied to surgical setting include:
How do you make leadership decisions in the face of uncertainty? How do you
enact positive changes for patient safety in your work system and its current
organizational culture? How do you negotiate with a multi-disciplinary team
and have the patient win? What do you need to know about health care finance
in order to get a financial decision-maker on your side?

For practical exposure, learning teams will work on a specific patient safety
project to apply their new leadership skills. A Wharton faculty member will
serve as mentor to each team and a panel of Wharton and School of Medicine faculty
will act as project advisors. Participants are measured on their progress by
pre- and post-program surveys.

“This is a collaboration of the best in business and the best in surgery,”
said Kathy Pearson, PhD, Academic Director of the Wharton School.
“The Patient Safety Leadership Academy, if successful, could become a
national learning model for improving patient safety and management practices
in surgery. If other institutions see that Penn has a successful model for effective
organizational and cultural change that improves patient safety, then they,
too, can follow our lead. New training techniques are more likely to catch on
if they have the backing of two reputable institutions, such as Penn Surgery
and the Wharton School.”

Funding for the Patient Safety Leadership Academy was provided by a grant from
the Philadelphia Health Care Trust. A copy of the Leadership Academy program
is available at: www.uphs.upenn.edu/surgery/psla/.

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The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP),
founded in 1874 as the nation’s first teaching hospital, is today ranked
consistently by US News and World Report as one of the nation’s “Honor
Roll” hospitals. HUP physicians are faculty in the University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine -- which is ranked #4 in the nation by US News and World
Report in its annual survey of research-oriented medical schools. Penn’s
School of Medicine is also ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research
funds.

About The Wharton School:
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized around the
world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every
level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business
school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, doctoral
students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive programs annually, and
an alumni network of more than 75,000 worldwide.

About the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics is a cooperative venture among
Penn's Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Wharton and is the University
of Pennsylvania's center for health services research, health policy analysis,
and health care management executive education.